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<h1>Easy or Hard?</h1>

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<center><span class="summary">Outline</span></center>
<ol>
<li><a href="#part1">Saying something is easy or hard to do</a></li>
<li><a href="#part2">Variations of 「～にくい」 with 「～がたい」 and  「～づらい」</a></li>
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<h2 id="part1">Saying something is easy or hard to do</h2>
This is a short easy lesson on how to transform verbs into adjectives describing whether that action is easy or difficult to do.  Basically,
it consists of changing the verb into the stem and adding 「やすい」 for easy and 「にくい」 for hard.  The result then becomes a regular i-adjective.
Pretty easy, huh?


<div class="sumbox">
<span class="summary">Using 「～やすい、～にくい」 to describe easy and difficult actions</span>
<ul class="plain">
<li>To describe an action as being easy, change the verb to the <a href="polite.html">stem</a> and add 「やすい」. To describe an action as being difficult, attach 「にくい」 to the <a href="polite.html#part2">stem</a>.</li>
<li>例）　ru-verb: <span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べ<em><strike>る</strike></em></span> → <span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べ</span><em>やすい</em> </li>
<li>例）　u-verb: <span title="しゃべる - to talk" class="popup">しゃべ<em><strike>る</strike></em></span> → <span title="しゃべる - to talk" class="popup">しゃべ<em>り</em></span> → <span title="しゃべる - to talk" class="popup">しゃべり</span><em>にくい</em> </li>
</ul>

<center>
<table border="1" cellpadding="5">
<caption>The result becomes a regular i-adjective.</caption>
<tr align="center"><th></th><th>Positive</th><th>Negative</th></tr>
<tr align="center"><th>Non-Past</th><td><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べ</span>にく<em>い</em></td><td><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べ</span>にく<em>くない</em></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><th>Past</th><td><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べ</span>にく<em>かった</em></td><td><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べ</span>にく<em>くなかった</em></td></tr>
</table>
</center>

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<h3>Examples</h3>

<p>
（１）　<span title="この - this" class="popup">この</span><span title="じ - character; hand-writing" class="popup">字</span>は<em><span title="よむ - to read" class="popup">読み</span>にくい</em>
<br />- This hand-writing is hard to read.
</p>

<p>
（２）　<span title="カクテル - cocktail" class="popup">カクテル</span>は<span title="ビール - beer" class="popup">ビール</span>より<em><span title="のむ - to drink" class="popup">飲み</span>やすい</em>。
<br />- Cocktails are easier to drink than beer.
</p>

<p>
（３）　<span title="へや - room" class="popup">部屋</span>が<span title="くらい - dark" class="popup">暗かった</span>ので、<em><span title="みる - to see" class="popup">見</span>にくかった</em>。
<br />- Since the room was dark, it was hard to see.
</p>

<p>As an aside: Be careful with 「<span title="みる - to see" class="popup">見</span>にくい」 because 「<span title="みにくい - ugly" class="popup">醜い</span>」 is a rarely used adjective meaning, "ugly". I wonder if it's just coincidence that
"difficult to see" and "ugly" sound exactly the same?
</p>

<p>Of course, you can always use some other grammatical structure that we have already learned to express the same thing using
appropriate adjectives such as 「<span title="むずかしい - difficult" class="popup">難しい</span>」、「<span title="やさしい - easy" class="popup">易しい</span>」、
「<span title="かんたん - simple" class="popup">簡単</span>」、「<span title="ようい - simple" class="popup">容易</span>」、etc.
The following two sentences are essentially identical in meaning.
</p>

<p>
（１）　<span title="あの - that over there" class="popup">あの</span><span title="にく - meat" class="popup">肉</span>は<em><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べ</span>にくい</em>。
<br />- That meat is hard to eat.
</p>
<p>
（２）　<span title="あの - that over there" class="popup">あの</span><span title="にく - meat" class="popup">肉</span>を<em><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べる</span>のは<span title="むずかしい - difficult" class="popup">難しい</span></em>。
<br />- The thing of eating that meat is difficult.
</p>

<h2 id="part2">Variations of 「～にくい」 with 「～がたい」 and  「～づらい」</h2>
The kanji for 「にくい」 actually comes from 「<span title="にくい／かたい - difficult" class="popup">難い</span>」 which can also be read as 「かたい」. As a result, you can
also add a voiced version 「～がたい」 as a verb suffix to express the same thing as 「にくい」. 「にくい」 is more common for speaking while 「がたい」 is more suited for the
written medium. 「にくい」 tends to be used for physical actions while 「がたい」 is usually reserved for less physical actions that don't actually require movement.
However, there seems to be no hard rule on which is more appropriate for a given verb so I suggest searching for both versions in google to ascertain the popularity of a
given combination. You should also always write the suffix in hiragana to prevent ambiguities in the reading.

<h3>Examples</h3>
<p>
（１）　<span title="かれ - he; boyfriend" class="popup">彼</span>との<em><span title="わすれる - to forget" class="popup">忘れ</span>がたい</em><span title="おもいで - memories" class="popup">思い出</span>を<span title="たいせつ - important" class="popup">大切</span>に<span title="する - to do" class="popup">している</span>。
<br />- I am treating importantly the hard to forget memories of and with him.
</p>
<p>
（２）　<span title="とても - very" class="popup">とても</span><em><span title="しんじる - to believe" class="popup">信じ</span>がたい</em><span title="はなし - story" class="popup">話</span>だが、<span title="ほんとう - really" class="popup">本当</span>に<span title="おこる - to occur" class="popup">起こった</span>らしい。
<br />- It's a very difficult to believe story but it seems (from hearsay) that it really happened.
</p>

<p>Yet another, more coarse variation of stem + 「にくい」 is to use 「づらい」 instead which is a slightly transformed version of 「<span title="つらい - painful" class="popup">辛い</span>」（つらい）. This is not to be confused
with the same 「<span title="からい - spicy" class="popup">辛い</span>」（からい）, which means spicy!
</p>

<h3>Examples</h3>

<p>
（１）　<span title="にほんご - Japanese language" class="popup">日本語</span>は<em><span title="よむ - to read" class="popup">読み</span>づらい</em>な。
<br />- Man, Japanese is hard to read.
</p>
<p>
（２）　<span title="まちあわせ - meeting arrangement" class="popup">待ち合わせ</span>は、<em><span title="わかる - to understand" class="popup">分かり</span>づらい</em><span title="ばしょ - location" class="popup">場所</span>に<span title="する - to do" class="popup">しない</span>でね。
<br />- Please don't pick a difficult to understand location for the meeting arrangement.
</p>

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<div class="small" style="text-align:right;"><pre>This page has last been revised on 2005/2/23</pre></div>

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